Test What They Know

I think this might be a very good idea. Here is the problem stated in the article:

These much maligned, fill-in-the-bubble reading tests are technically among the most reliable and valid tests available. The problem is that the reading passages used in these tests are random. They are not aligned with explicit grade-by-grade content standards. Children are asked to read and then answer multiple-choice questions about such topics as taking a hike in the Appalachians even though they’ve never left the sidewalks of New York, nor studied the Appalachians in school.

In fact, I think testing the kids reading comprehension by making them read stuff they learned about in class might even be fair to the kids! Imagine, a testing idea that might just test something relevant!

h/t edwise

Arne The Incenter II

I love this Jim Horn guy. In 2 sentences he throws an elbow into Arne Duncan:

There is something in how Arne Duncan writes and speaks that conveys the same kind of ivy-jock attention deficit that would be totally appropriate for a hurried after-game interview in which the reluctant star utters a few bromides about teamwork and playing hard and listening to the coach. As if in a hurry to get to the showers, Duncan, when wound up, dumps a fusilade of platitudes along a desolate stretch of disordered sentences that are too impatient to hold separate ideas apart, that roll out of his mouth or onto the page as instant bundled cliches that would have [been] better off had they had never been put into a position to need forgetting.

Oligarchy. Tep Says Oligarchy

Over at The Plank they're talking the economy. These are some smart mofos! Here is the latest bit of brilliance from a commenter in response to this comment:

Is there a name for our form of government in which the forms of democracy are observed while all meaningful power lies with money? If so, I don't know what it is, but there should be one.

And the response:

teplukhin2you said:

roi - that's easy: Oligarchy. This is what prevails in Russia, the middle east, most of Latin America, including the pseudo-socialist states like Chavez's Venezuela and Fidel's Cuba, where the oligarchs wear fatigues.

Oligarchy in the present environment denotes that polity where the commanding heights of the economy are controlled by a few actors who move frictionlessly in and out of the halls of political power.

The main political idea of the oligarchs is of a continuum between the state and private enterprise. Unlike fascism, which seeks to organize and co-opt powerful private groups (labor, industrial sectors, the church, etc) into "corporate" entities existing in uneasy harmony with the reigning political party, the oligarchs have little interest in society as such and are motivated less by power than by the desire for financial gain. They are happy to preserve a two- or multi-party system, so long as each side recognizes that political power is merely a stepping stone to the lucrative, state-affiliated key industries of investment banking and political lobbying.

While the twin oligarchic parties in this country fight bitterly over social issues, on the core issue of access to financial power, the parties share a fundamental belief that the state is subservient to financial interests which themselves are viewed as the the key driver of economic growth and the ultimate arbiter of wise policy.

Some oligarchs extend this belief further to the idea that the nation = the state, and that those who control the state-- the permanent political class, which rotates in and out of power into lobbying firms and corporate suites closely aligned to the state-- have sole authority for the state's direction, scope and resources. In this political model, the public is redirected away from fundamental economic and financial discussions toward socio-cultural battles via feigned outrage, "dog whistles", phony controversies.

in sum, the animating principles of Oligarchy are:

-- lack of transparency

-- redirecting the public gaze to non-economic issues

-- the blurring of the state and the private financial sector

-- sweetheart $$$ deals for the permanent political class

Meanwhile, our government-as-Davos model proceeds apace, with each party ensuring that it can land safely in a seven- or eight-figure salaried position for an investment or lobbying firm, as Rahm Emanuel, the Bojangles of the Banking Business, did in 1998 when he schlepped his DNC donor Rolodex to an investment fund for $18m in three years, or Tom Daschle did in 2006, on his way to $5m in quick money, or Donna Shalala and Walter Mondale did, as directors of that poster child for corporate misgovernance and theft, United Health, or the new ass't HHS sec'y, Ms DeParle did when she left the public sector to run an fund investing in, you guessed it, health care companies, or....

Tuesday Bonus Cartoon Fun: "A Signature Loss" Edition

Merit Pay: It Doesn't Work!

I've said it before!

Following the wrong example

Houston teacher Laura Taylor examines proposals for merit pay for teachers in light of the experience in her school district.

March 24, 2009

IN HIS recent speech, President Barack Obama spoke about the importance of education in our country and declared that under his administration, "good teachers will be rewarded with more money for student achievement."

Obama gave two examples of school districts already doing this, one being the district that I teach in, Houston Independent School District (HISD). The largest school district in Texas, HISD has been at the forefront of using standardized test scores to determine bonuses.

Given this, you might expect merit pay and standardized testing to be universally effective and accepted within HISD. In reality, they are anything but.

In this economy, it's difficult for any person to turn down extra money. Yet a survey done by HISD right after bonuses were awarded in January found that only 45 percent of teachers and other school employees liked the system.

Every year, it seems, the HISD administration rolls out yet another version of ASPIRE, the program that determines these bonuses. And every year, confusion and frustration reigns among teachers.

Though the district pours in money for professional development to explain the program, the merit pay "awards" still feel arbitrary to many teachers. As Houston Federation for Teachers President Gayle Fallon told the Houston Chronicle, "They're still comparing it to winning the lottery."

Part of what makes the system so controversial is the tremendous amount of bonus money that goes to principals and administrators.

For the most recent round of bonuses, School Superintendant Abelardo Saavedra gave himself the largest, paying himself $77,500 out of a possible $80,000, in addition to his annual salary of $327,010. The next highest paid were executive principals, many earning bonuses of well over $10,000. Teachers who did earn a bonus got nowhere near that amount. And more than 2,100 eligible employees earned nothing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EVEN IF the merit pay distribution appeared to be fair to those involved, it would still be a failure.

On the surface, it might appear like a good idea to reward teachers--who are underappreciated and underpaid--with more money. However, this is not the role merit pay plays in the school system. Merit pay is another way to divide teachers, fostering competition between teachers instead of collaboration.

It also goes against what I have experienced as a teacher. Teachers do their best not because they could earn more money if they do, but because they care about their students. Barbara Falcon, a high school teacher who opted out of the system this year, agrees. "I am against ASPIRE because, as an insider, I clearly see that you cannot improve the quality of teachers or teaching unless teacher salaries in total are raised," Falcon told the Houston Chronicle.

On top of the problems inherent within merit pay is the way in which money is divvied up. Merit pay schemes reward not good teachers, but those who are most effective at test preparation.

When merit pay is involved, student achievement becomes simply student scores on standardized tests. Any teacher can tell you that standardized tests are not the best measure of student achievement. Not only are they culturally biased, but they typically represent the lowest levels of thinking, via multiple-choice answers, and leave no room for creative and critical thinking.

Relying on standardized testing removes the trust we have in our teachers to determine student achievement. What is a better measure of student learning--an assessment by the teacher who spends every day with a student or high-stakes, fill-in-the-bubble standardized tests?

Beyond this, because standardized testing has come to determine everything from bonuses to student promotion, teachers are increasingly pressured to "teach to the test." Learning is focused on figuring out the right answer in the mind of test creators, rather than the most creative answer.

In many schools, entire lessons are devoted to teaching young children how to appropriately fill in the bubbles for these standardized tests. Principals and superintendents, who are looking forward to big merit pay bonuses, push teachers to focus on this test preparation rather than genuine learning.

The use of merit pay in HISD is not an example for others to follow, but rather a cautionary tale. Those who seek to improve our public school--teachers, parents, students and community members alike--should oppose merit pay in favor of paying all our teachers a fair wage and fully funding teaching, not test preparation.

Tuesday Bonus Cartoon Fun: They Don't Get It Edition

Tuesday Cartoon Fun: Blind Faith Edition

Guest post by mom2015:

We'll Let You Go If You Lie About Torture, Okay?

This is from Jonathan Turley. He was on Rachel Maddow's show last night talking about this and the Obama/Cheney exchange. His take on the Obama/Cheney thing caught me by surprise; I thought Obama smacked Cheney down. Turley thinks Obama, by even having this dialogue with Cheney, is perpetuating the slide toward changing history instead of vindicating it with war crimes trials. You need to watch the Maddow clip, he is impassioned about it, and you should be too! (in the first graf of Turley's post).

Court: United States Offered to Release Detainee If He Would Not Reveal His Own Torture

Two British High Court judges have released a very disturbing decision that finds that ormer detainee Binyam Mohamed was offered his freedom by the United States in exchange for his promise not to reveal his own torture at Guantanamo Bay. Equally disturbing is the statement from the English government that it cannot release proof of the torture because of objections from the United States government. If the Obama Administration is continuing this position, it is not only blocking prosecution of war crimes but the release of evidence of such war crimes to other nations. I discussed this and other developments on this segment of Rachel Maddow’s show.

Mohamed is an Ethiopian who moved to Britain as a teenager and was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He claims he was tortured Pakistan and in Morocco. He was then transferred to the United States, which also tortured him.

All charges against him were dropped last year. He refused our Faustian bargain.

Lord Justice John Thomas and Mr. Justice David Lloyd Jones said that there was evidence to show Mohamed was tortured, but that the documents could not be made public because of the objections by the United States. Presumably, if the Obama Administration lifted such objections publicly, the British government would not have a basis to withhold the material.

For the full story, click here and here.

Obama's Global Op-Ed

From HuffPo:

A time for global action
By Barack Obama
Monday, March 23, 2009

WASHINGTON: We are living through a time of global economic challenges that cannot be met by half measures or the isolated efforts of any nation. Now, the leaders of the Group of 20 have a responsibility to take bold, comprehensive and coordinated action that not only jump-starts recovery, but also launches a new era of economic engagement to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again.

No one can deny the urgency of action. A crisis in credit and confidence has swept across borders, with consequences for every corner of the world. For the first time in a generation, the global economy is contracting and trade is shrinking.

Trillions of dollars have been lost, banks have stopped lending, and tens of millions will lose their jobs across the globe. The prosperity of every nation has been endangered, along with the stability of governments and the survival of people in the most vulnerable parts of the world.

Once and for all, we have learned that the success of the American economy is inextricably linked to the global economy. There is no line between action that restores growth within our borders and action that supports it beyond.

If people in other countries cannot spend, markets dry up -- already we've seen the biggest drop in American exports in nearly four decades, which has led directly to American job losses. And if we continue to let financial institutions around the world act recklessly and irresponsibly, we will remain trapped in a cycle of bubble and bust. That is why the upcoming London Summit is directly relevant to our recovery at home.
Story continues below

My message is clear: The United States is ready to lead, and we call upon our partners to join us with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Much good work has been done, but much more remains.

Our leadership is grounded in a simple premise: We will act boldly to lift the American economy out of crisis and reform our regulatory structure, and these actions will be strengthened by complementary action abroad. Through our example, the United States can promote a global recovery and build confidence around the world; and if the London Summit helps galvanize collective action, we can forge a secure recovery, and future crises can be averted.

Our efforts must begin with swift action to stimulate growth. Already, the United States has passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the most dramatic effort to jump-start job creation and lay a foundation for growth in a generation.

Other members of the G-20 have pursued fiscal stimulus as well, and these efforts should be robust and sustained until demand is restored. As we go forward, we should embrace a collective commitment to encourage open trade and investment, while resisting the protectionism that would deepen this crisis.

Second, we must restore the credit that businesses and consumers depend upon. At home, we are working aggressively to stabilize our financial system. This includes an honest assessment of the balance sheets of our major banks, and will lead directly to lending that can help Americans purchase goods, stay in their homes and grow their businesses.

This must continue to be amplified by the actions of our G-20 partners. Together, we can embrace a common framework that insists upon transparency, accountability and a focus on restoring the flow of credit that is the lifeblood of a growing global economy. And the G-20, together with multilateral institutions, can provide trade finance to help lift up exports and create jobs.

Third, we have an economic, security and moral obligation to extend a hand to countries and people who face the greatest risk. If we turn our backs on them, the suffering caused by this crisis will be enlarged, and our own recovery will be delayed because markets for our goods will shrink further and more American jobs will be lost.

The G-20 should quickly deploy resources to stabilize emerging markets, substantially boost the emergency capacity of the International Monetary Fund and help regional development banks accelerate lending. Meanwhile, America will support new and meaningful investments in food security that can help the poorest weather the difficult days that will come.

While these actions can help get us out of crisis, we cannot settle for a return to the status quo. We must put an end to the reckless speculation and spending beyond our means; to the bad credit, over-leveraged banks and absence of oversight that condemns us to bubbles that inevitably bust.

Only coordinated international action can prevent the irresponsible risk-taking that caused this crisis. That is why I am committed to seizing this opportunity to advance comprehensive reforms of our regulatory and supervisory framework.

All of our financial institutions -- on Wall Street and around the globe -- need strong oversight and common sense rules of the road. All markets should have standards for stability and a mechanism for disclosure. A strong framework of capital requirements should protect against future crises. We must crack down on offshore tax havens and money laundering.

Rigorous transparency and accountability must check abuse, and the days of out-of-control compensation must end. Instead of patchwork efforts that enable a race to the bottom, we must provide the clear incentives for good behavior that foster a race to the top.

I know that America bears our share of responsibility for the mess that we all face. But I also know that we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people.

This G-20 meeting provides a forum for a new kind of global economic cooperation. Now is the time to work together to restore the sustained growth that can only come from open and stable markets that harness innovation, support entrepreneurship and advance opportunity.

The nations of the world have a stake in one another. The United States is ready to join a global effort on behalf of new jobs and sustainable growth. Together, we can learn the lessons of this crisis, and forge a prosperity that is enduring and secure for the 21st century.

Barack Obama is president of the United States. A Global Viewpoint article distributed by Tribune Media Services.

"These Guys Just Don't Get It"

A$$holes

Commentary By Ron Beasley

This is just too much:

Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Criticize Limits

March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., recipients of more than $100 billion in U.S. rescue funds, criticized congressional proposals to tax Wall Street bonuses.

Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis called the tax “unfair” in a memo to employees yesterday, while Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit said his bank is “working in every appropriate way with policymakers.” JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon held a conference call with about 200 executives, saying the firm is concerned about retention and is working with lawmakers.

These guys just don't get it. There are people standing outside their gated communities with pitch forks and they think that it's all unfair. Yes these are the same people who's greed and incompetence resulted in this cluster fuck economy. It would appear that the Obama administration is just as clueless. Mr Obama read my lips:

• Seize the insolvent "zombie" banks.
  
  
• Split them up into little pieces and send Mr Lewis, Mr Pandit and Mr Dimon packing with only the shirts on their backs.
  

If you don't it won't be long before the pitchfork armed crowd is storming the White House.

Think Bastille Day.

See Keith Olbermann

Monday Bonus Carrtoon Fun: Hope Fading? Edition

Monday Cartoon Fun: Gun Control Edition

The Greedy Bastards Are Also Evil

You gotta love Matt Taibbi and his explanation of why America is so completely fucked financially. Here is a snippet:

As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

"The Rapacious Raptors Of Unrestrained Greed": Education Reformers

Jim Horn is a force. His writing reflects his righteous anger about the reformers and their apparent desire to privatize the public schools.

The Age of the Education Oligarchs: Nip It in the Bud

The many millions that the neo-liberal oligarchs have pumped into the Democratic Party Machine have paid off handsomely in every area of government, especially education. Darling-Hammond, the only Obama advisor who had any understanding of education issues and educational solutions (as distinct from business solutions), was banished early on in favor of the Harvard business guys, economists, lawyers, recycled sychophants from the Clinton years, testing industry leeches, and most importantly, the new superclass of education entrepreneurial parasites and tax evaders, who have their non-profits and foundations in place to launder their hoarded, dirty money so that American taxpayers will end up funding the planned takeover of public schools for corporate interests.

Education by and for the oligarchs is intended to be achieved while making the education-industrial complex deliriously wealthy for putting in place a system that drains any remaining creativity from the schools and for instituting an oppressive, omnipresent surveillance system so that students and teachers are monitored K-20. The most galling part of all this is that the inherent evil of this neo-fascism is shrouded for its perpetrators and press offices by a rosy, inpenetrable fog of arrogance, hubris, and an overweaning air of unacknowledged privilege and superiority. What tiny bit of liberal guilt or glimmer of awareness that does register to this new superclass of super A-holes is quickly glossed over, then, by a bullying rhetoric that has been only slightly tweaked since the recent reign of the Decider.

Remember when Bush attacked anyone who might resist the inherently classist and racist testing plans as engaging in the bigotry of low expectations? Well, that sentiment survives and takes on new life in the Age of the Education Oligarchs, as recently evidenced in the speech by the new President of the ASCD corporation, who promises to maintain the advertising campaign to have educators drink another cup of Kool-Aid:

. . . .We can foster a world in which learning transcends geographic and cultural barriers.

A world in which poverty caused by economic conditions and poverty of racial inequities, and the most sinister of all, the poverty of low expectations - all can be overcome by learning. . . .

And so it goes--if your homeless students aren't learning like Seth and Caitlin or the Obama girls, well, there is something you need to fix about your expectations, Mr. Teacher Man.

Meanwhile, the same strategy of lying about the public schools continues, too, under the new regime. FactCheck.org is now in the game:

Summary

Last year, the president touted U.S. gains in education, saying that our "fourth- and eighth-graders achieved the highest math scores on record." He bragged that "African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs." Last week, the president said those eighth-graders weren't so great at math after all. He claimed they had "fallen to ninth place" in the world, and he bemoaned a high school dropout rate that had "tripled" over three decades.

What a difference a year makes.

Last year President Bush was talking up improvements that had occurred since his No Child Left Behind Act was implemented. This year President Obama is making a case for spending more on teachers' salaries, early education and more as part of his new agenda. We certainly wouldn't argue that education can't be improved, but some of the figures Obama used painted a bleaker picture than actually exists:

The high school dropout rate hasn't "tripled in the past 30 years," as Obama claimed. According to the Department of Education, it has actually declined by a third.

Eighth-grade math scores haven't "fallen" to ninth place compared with other countries. U.S. scores have climbed to that ranking from as low as 28th place in 1995.

Obama also set a goal "of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world" by 2020. But in terms of bachelor's degrees, we're nearly there. The U.S. is already second only to Norway in the percentage of adults age 25 to 64 with a four-year degree, and trails by just 1 percentage point. . . .

It is unfortunate for Broad, Gates, Dell, the Waltons, and Fisher, etc. that their ascendancy would come at a time when the bankruptcy of their Greed Model has come into sharp relief against a world of struggling workers and unemployed people living in tents. And yet the U. S. Department of Education still doesn't get it, for it reflects more every day a single viewpoint that has been entrusted to the rapacious raptors of unrestrained greed who continue to feed on American taxpayers, while ensconcing themselves in the highest seats of political power.

Olbermann Special AIG Comment

In case you haven't already seen it, here is Keith Olbermann expressing my outrage over the greedy bastards: